Volvo reveals off the Polestar 3’s sweet new Android Automotive interface

Volvo, Qualcomm, and Google are teaming up to make vehicle infotainment even extra smartphone-like than at any time. If Wintel (Home windows additionally Intel) is the default computer software+components combo of the Pc period, then the smartphone equivalent has obtained to be Android and Qualcomm (Andcom? Qualdroid?). Volvo is bringing this combo to the impending Polestar 3 electrical SUV, which is thanks sometime in 2022. We also obtained a sneak peek at what the new interface would search like.

Volvo’s Polestar 2 was the first to ship Google’s Android Automotive OS in a car or truck. Not like Android Auto or Apple’s CarPlay, which operate on your smartphone, Android Automotive OS has a customized version of Android pre-set up on the auto as the principal auto infotainment OS. Even if you have an Apple iphone, your vehicle however runs Android. The Polestar 2 used an x86 chip (an Intel Atom A3900), but now Volvo is pairing a Qualcomm smartphone chip with its Google smartphone OS. The Polestar 3 will ship with Qualcomm’s “Snapdragon Cockpit Platform Gen 3,” and whilst that seems exceptional, it is truly just a repackaged smartphone chip with a few more capabilities.

The integration of automobiles with personal computer engineering is constantly challenging. Car development usually takes all-around five yrs, which can appear almost incompatible with the improvement tempo of smartphones and computer systems. Which is continue to legitimate of the 2022 Polestar 3. Qualcomm’s Gen 3 automotive platform was essentially introduced back in 2019, but structure wins for the system are just now getting introduced at CES 2022. Qualcomm says the Gen 3 automotive system is based on the Snapdragon 820 SoC, an ARM flagship smartphone chip from 2016. You might remember this chip from telephones these as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Google Pixel 1. The Polestar 2’s Intel Atom was also from 2016.

The Gen 3 could possibly not be the newest chip in the environment, but still, Volvo is on the very same components and software package platform as smartphones. Volvo should now have a useless-very simple, constant ARM upgrade route, many thanks to the smartphone development that comes about every yr. Here is hoping this consistency qualified prospects to a a lot quicker path to market for the components. Qualcomm already declared the Gen 4 automotive platform at past year’s CES—it just would not pop up in a auto for a even though.

But about the Gen 3’s extra characteristics: it has upgraded RF capabilities like Wi-Fi 6, 5G, and more recent Bluetooth, which you could not get on the Snapdragon 820. Supporting a car, in particular an Android automobile, also indicates needing support for virtualization. Android can run the infotainment technique, but some thing else wants to operate the gauge cluster display screen driving the steering wheel. Basic safety rules mandate that the gauge cluster can not operate Android. Android is just not a real-time OS, meaning it can lag if the processor is way too gradual, and that is not permitted for vital driving components like the speedometer. The solution is to have the Snapdragon 820 run two OSes by way of virtualization, with Android functioning the heart infotainment monitor and some other OS running the gauge cluster show. Android can even now deliver the gauge cluster a UI overlay for things like media details and Google Maps information, but the speedo is off-boundaries.

Resurrecting the Snapdragon 820 for a present day solution is an exciting proposition for Qualcomm. On smartphones, Qualcomm’s item aid is typically cited as a key barrier for the longevity of Android telephones. The Snapdragon 820 would have supported something like a few major Android versions, so Android 6, 7, and 8. Qualcomm would have shut down assist someday around 2019, just when the Snapdragon 820-based mostly third-era car chip was introduced. So even though Qualcomm would have killed your mobile phone, it does not look like Android enhancement for this chip at any time in fact stopped. The Polestar 3 will most very likely commence with Android 11 or 12, and guidance will want to proceed for a long time, even although the enterprise will not want to move that operate on to smartphones.

Nowadays, Qualcomm has a general public assist timeline for cell phone chips: three decades of big OS updates and 4 years of protection updates. When asked if there was a similar system for motor vehicle assistance, Qualcomm reported it would assist motor vehicle chips for lengthier than cell phone chips, but the firm would not offer particulars.

Shoving a smartphone chip in a automobile offers Qualcomm a fast way to get to market place, since telephones are at this time its biggest sector. But the resolution is not suitable. Smartphone chips are developed totally all over the dimension and electrical power limitations of a smartphone, none of which exist in a automobile. A car is huge. The full flooring is a battery. The cooling can be as huge as you want it to be. Qualcomm is running into the very same challenge several companies in the marketplace are operating into: the biggest ARM chips are nonetheless mainly just the smartphone chips. Apple is placing the development by scaling up ARM to desktop and notebook computer systems, but it can do that simply because it has a custom chip-structure division. Most other businesses will not. Qualcomm is functioning on obtaining there, even though, and it options to begin designing much more potent ARM chips for laptops (and cars and trucks?) in the long run.